Multi-car vehicles are known in different designs and in different forms of adaptation for uses. Multi-car vehicles, for example, railway-bound trains (street cars and subway-trains also being considered as such trains) are known and are known for the purpose of transporting passengers as well as transporting goods. Further types of multi-car vehicles can be magnetic railway trains or can be buses (road buses as well as buses travelling on fixed tracks). A car of a multi-car vehicle can be a self-supporting car, whereby the car has sufficient wheels that are placed at sufficient locations such that the car can stand by itself without being supported by other cars, for example a three-wheeled car, a four wheeled car or a car with even more wheels placed suitable locations. A car of a multi-car vehicle can also be of the non-self-supporting type, whereby the car has no wheels or only wheels provided in such number or arranged at such a place that the car can not stand by itself, but is vertically supported by at least one neighbouring car.
The present invention pertains to a gangway that can in a preferred embodiment be used with such types of multi-car vehicles and is suitable to connect a first car with a second car and to allow passage of passengers from the first car to the second car. In the majority of embodiments, the cars of the multi-car vehicle will be connected by a separate connecting device, for example a coupler, that connects the cars in a manner allowing the transmittal of substantial pulling and pushing forces. In the majority of cases, the gangway is designed separately and predominantly designed with the requirements for the passage of passengers from the first car to the second car in mind.
A gangway is typically suitable to shield the passenger from outside influences. One problem to be solved in this context is to ensure that the passenger is shielded from the outside in all operational modes that the gangway will take. A further problem to be solved is to prevent obstacles within the gangway that can harm the passenger. Also, gangways should preferably have a large internal width that allows easy passage of the passengers from the one car to the other car.
Gangways usually have at a first hoop for attaching the gangway to the first car and a second hoop for attaching the gangway to the second car. These hoops are often also called frames. Some designs of gangways have one further hoop arranged equidistantly between the first hoop and the second hoop, which is often called the centre hoop or centre frame. Such a design of a gangway is known from DE 20 2013 100 563 U1 that in FIG. 5 shows the hoops of the gangway. The middle frame 25 is made up of two elements fixedly attached to each other.
The disadvantage of this design is that when going around a bend, the part of the gangway between the first hoop and the centre hoop will take up the shape of a parallelogram as well as the part of the gangway between the first hoop and the centre hoop will take up the shape of a parallelogram (see FIG. 11 or 12 for example). This will lead to a reduction of cross section that the passengers can pass through.
The design of DE 20 2013 100 563 U1 also has the problem that the bellows need to be designed strong enough to carry inwardly protruding elements that hold the passenger away from the edges of the tread-plates (see for example FIGS. 3 and 4). To carry these protruding elements, the bellows often have supporting bars sewn into them. This additional load on the bellows reduces the lifetime of the bellows, which already are the least long lasting element of a gangway.